The Inevitable Decline of Great Britain (Cont.)

The brutal murder of an off-duty soldier by two Muslim activists continues to dominate the news in Great Britain. The scene was utterly bizarre: in broad daylight, in a busy section of London, the two Muslims apparently ran the soldier down with a car, within a block or two of his barracks, and then attacked him with knives and a meat cleaver. They attempted to behead him, apparently not quite successfully, as hundreds of passers-by looked on. No one stopped them–private ownership of firearms being illegal in the U.K.–but three random women, who have been extravagantly praised for their bravery, tended to the soldier’s body and engaged the murderers in conversation, in hopes of diverting them from killing anyone else. This went on for quite a while.

I was puzzled by early reports which indicated that police were present at the scene from the beginning, but also suggested that the killers waited for something like 20 minutes for policemen to arrive, whereupon they attacked them. It turns out that the reports were not inconsistent. There were policemen on the scene from the beginning, but they were unarmed:

Although other bystanders watched in horror and police waited helplessly for armed officers to arrive, Gemini modestly insisted her [sic] and her mother were not heroes and had done what anyone else would do.

The idea of policemen in one of the world’s major cities “wait[ing] helplessly for armed officers to arrive,” while murderers parade up and down the street soaked in blood and the body of a half-beheaded soldier lies in the street, is almost unbelievable. And yet that is the state of law enforcement in Great Britain. The average American household is better armed than a London policeman, and as a result, it was left to a few women from the crowd of bystanders to try to deal with cleaver-wielding murderers.

But that doesn’t mean the British are entirely lax with respect to law enforcement. No, not at all: it just depends which laws you are talking about. If you mean laws against carving up innocent people on the street with knives, well, the Brits have a problem. But if you complain about such an outrage on Facebook or Twitter, you’re going to be crushed by the full majesty of the law. (Via InstaPundit):

A 22-year-old man has been charged on suspicion of making malicious comments on Facebook following the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby.

Benjamin Flatters, from Lincoln, was arrested last night after complaints were made to Lincolnshire Police about comments made on Facebook, which were allegedly of a racist or anti-religious nature.

He was charged with an offence of malicious communications this afternoon in relation to the comments, a Lincolnshire Police spokesman said.

That’ll show ’em! There is more:

A second man was visited by officers and warned about his activity on social media, the spokesman added.

Flatters has been remanded in police custody and will appear before magistrates in Lincoln tomorrow.

The charge comes after two men were earlier released on bail following their arrest for making alleged offensive comments on Twitter about the murder.

Complaints were made to Avon and Somerset Police about remarks that appeared on the social networking website, which were allegedly of a racist or anti-religious nature.

I take it that the men on whom the law has descended like a ton of bricks made some adverse comment about Islamic terrorism. Like, they may have mentioned that it is Islamic. We certainly can’t have such lawlessness in a country where crazed murderers, soaked in blood past their elbows, cow unarmed policemen! In England, arresting you for disapproving of murder is what passes for law and order.

It reminds me of the story about the guy who is crawling around on the ground under a street light, late at night. A passer-by stops and asks what he is doing; the guy says he is looking for his watch. The passer-by asks whether this is where he lost it. The guy says No, I lost it over there–pointing some distance away–but the light is better here.

Likewise, in Great Britain, the authorities have no idea what to do about the real problem, an endless series of murders and attempted murders by fanatics yelling “Allahu Akbar!” So they do the next best thing: they go for the easy targets, searching where the light is better: arresting those who haven’t beheaded anyone, but who have expressed their outrage at those who do. Thus does civilization end with a whimper.